Upcoming Events

Wednesday

Oct 3

2018

CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS

Carnegie Hall’s Opening Night GalaSan Francisco Symphony

This is a Carnegie Hall Opening Night you will never forget. A pair of vocal superstars—Renée Fleming and Audra McDonald—join Perspectives artist Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony for an evening of favorites from opera and music theater. To add to the festive occasion, there's exhilarating orchestral music by Gershwin and Liszt's whirling waltz.

Thursday

Oct 4

2018

CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS

San Francisco Symphony

Michael Tilson Thomas had a lifelong relationship with Stravinsky, dating back to performing in Stravinsky's presence during Tilson Thomas's student days in Los Angeles. This all-Stravinsky program promises spectacular orchestral colors, rhythmic vitality, unique melodies, and plenty of excitement. Stravinsky’s ballet Pétrouchka is a thrilling masterpiece where Russian folk tunes enliven brilliant musical tableaux, while the savage rhythms, earthy melodies, and drama of Le sacre du printemps make it a cornerstone of 20th-century music. Another side of Stravinsky shines in his witty Violin Concerto, a four-movement dazzler where pungent harmonies, beautiful song-like passages, and jazzy syncopated rhythms challenge the soloist and captivate the listener.

Sunday

Oct 14

2018

CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS

Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique

Please note that the start time for this concert is now 3 PM.

Here’s a rare opportunity to hear the music as Berlioz would have when the piquant winds, warm brass, and crisp strings of a celebrated period-instrument orchestra make his vibrant colors and gorgeous melodies soar even higher. Moving tales inspired by Romantic poetry and classical antiquity are set to music by a quintessentially French Romantic. Berlioz cast the viola as the protagonist in Harold in Italy, a moody and melodic work recalling Byron’s wandering hero, while two legendary queens—Dido and Cleopatra—come to life in impassioned vocal music.

Monday

Oct 15

2018

CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS

Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique

Obsession, madness, murder, and redemption are portrayed in the richly Romantic music—performed on period instruments—of Berlioz. His Symphonie fantastique is a phantasmagoric tale that depicts an opium overdose, nightmares of murder, a guillotine execution, and a terrifying Witches’ Sabbath. Berlioz called his rarely heard Lélio a “conclusion and complement” to the Symphonie fantastique. Lélio uses vocal soloists, chorus, and orchestra—including two pianists performing on one instrument—to tell of the Symphonie hero’s awaking from the nightmare, his musings on art, and his ultimate triumph as a composer.

Thursday

Oct 25

2018

CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS

Orchestra of St. Luke’s

Haydn’s "Nelson Mass" might have been inspired by the visit of the British naval hero to the Esterházy estate where he worked. There’s certainly a martial flair to the work—trumpets and drums work overtime—particularly in its forceful Kyrie and Benedictus. There’s also lore surrounding Mozart’s Requiem, mostly courtesy of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, but the music reigns supreme. The choral music is grand, the passages for solo voices are expressive, and the orchestral writing anticipates the Romantics with its color and gripping dramatic power.

Saturday

Oct 27

2018

CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS

Czech Philharmonic

Hearing a great orchestra perform Dvořák is memorable, but to experience a legendary Czech orchestra play his music is unforgettable. Two Dvořák masterpieces—the warmly expressive Symphony No. 7 and impassioned Cello Concerto—are each imbued with his hallmark lyricism and warm color. Not a single note in is misjudged in a symphony where form and melody come together brilliantly, while the Cello Concerto’s virtuoso passages for the soloist thrill and its elegiac tone touches the heart.

Sunday

Oct 28

2018

CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS

Czech Philharmonic

Mahler’s epic Symphony No. 2 is a magnificent meditation on life, death, and the beyond. Scored for vocal soloists, chorus, organ, and colossal orchestra, its viscerally powerful music shapes a dramatic arc that begins with a funeral rite, looks back on life’s joys, aspires to the almighty in the gorgeous alto solo “Urlicht” ("Primal Light"), and is shattered by a depiction of the last judgment—including a harrowing march of the dead—before soaring heavenward in one of the most resplendent choral finales ever composed.

Wednesday

Oct 31

2018

CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS

Mariinsky Orchestra

You won’t have to wait for Christmas to be enchanted by Tchaikovsky’s whimsical and wonderful ballet The Nutcracker. The irresistible music is spectacularly orchestrated and imbued with some of the most beloved—and widely recognized—melodies ever written. From the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy," with its beguiling celesta solo, to the exuberant energy of the national dances, and culminating in the beautiful final tableau, it is a classic for all ages.

Thursday

Nov 1

2018

CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS

Mariinsky Orchestra

The “marvelous” (Los Angeles Times) Mariinsky Orchestra and its Music Director Valery Gergiev—renowned for their high-octane, virtuosic performances—perform two masterpieces that will set pulses racing. The Brahms concerto’s muscular solo part, rich orchestration—including a sublime cello solo in the Andante—and melodic splendor make it one of his most enduring works, while Strauss’s epic tone poem Ein Heldenleben excites with its lush orchestration and a cinematic sensibility, especially in a famous scene where the hero battles his critics.

Friday

Nov 2

2018

CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS

American Composers Orchestra

Valerie Coleman’s new work, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, is titled Phenomenal Women and is one of the thought-provoking and highly exciting works you will hear on this program. In addition to Coleman’s, there’s a world premiere from Alex Temple, a composer who integrates love for pop culture and the Western classical tradition, and a colorful Joan Tower work that juxtaposes large blocks of sound with intimate solos and duets.